Ep. 61: Two-Minute Tip — Capture Tools Everywhere

May 3, 2020

Unleashing your creativity starts with effective idea capture. When inspiration strikes, don’t let it slip away—always have a pen and pad handy. Your mind can be a chaotic workspace, but jotting things down ensures nothing important is forgotten. The podcast emphasizes that simplicity is key; low-tech tools beat distractions every time. Creating a designated capture spot at home or work can transform your productivity and keep your thoughts organized. Master the art of capturing ideas and watch your clarity soar!

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ADVICE

Capture Tools Everywhere

Keep capture tools everywhere, such as a pen and pad.
This helps record fleeting thoughts and ideas immediately.

INSIGHT

Head as a Terrible Office

Your head is a terrible office for managing tasks.
Offload thoughts to external tools to avoid forgetting them.

ADVICE

Low-Tech Tools

Use low-tech tools like pen and paper for capturing ideas.
These are readily available and avoid technical distractions.

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Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen Capture Tools Everywhere When things pop into your head that you're going to need to think about, deal with, do something about have to make a decision about or whatever that's potentially relevant to you.

Then you need to make sure you get those out of your head and capture them because your head is a terrible office, it'll fool you because you think of it you're sure you won't forget whatever that is but two minutes later you're thinking of the next thing you don't want to forget but you forgot the first thing.

So you need capture tools. So, mine are low tech for the most part. No batteries, no Wi-Fi required. This is with me all the time. A pen and a little pad. When I'm sitting down anywhere that's a flat surface longer then a few a minutes, I've got a pad and a pen, can't beat it.

Who knows when lightning is going to strike, something's are going to occur to me I need to deal with. Particularly while I'm working on other things and dealing with other things something comes from the side and hits me. Right then I want to be able to write it down. If you're having to look for a capture tool, you won't do it, you'll miss it.

I would highly recommend that wherever your work space is and certainly even in your home space that you have a place where you, and also other people, if you live with other people that they can have a place to also write things down and capture stuff out of your head.

Your head's a terrible office, you can't keep track of more than four things in your head without diminishing your cognitive process, and so it's the very first step. If you're familiar with the GTD or Getting Things Done methodology, you know that's a critical first step, which is capture, but you're not going to capture if you don't have the tools with you. So make sure you've got good capture tools around.

They can be digital, they can be paper based. I like low tech. I think it's fast, it's much easier. That's not my permanent system, It's a place though as a placeholder, and an important placeholder to be able to get the stuff out of my head, so that I stop spinning on that and then know I'll come back to it and not lose the idea.